Scents, Sounds, and the Little Things In Between

I t’s impossible to forget where you were the day the pandemic began. 2 weeks of uncertain cancellation quickly degenerated into months of complete absence. Absence of crowds, of contact, of performance, of art at large. Such a change for many opened a void. At the drop of a pin, inspiration felt foreign and far away as if there was no way to create collaboratively.

For Norwegian singer, songwriter, and novelist Jenny Hval, scent, specifically a classic perfume called “Iris Silver Mist” (the title of her ninth solo album), brought sparks when things were dim, quiet, unknown, and, at times, perilous. I had the privilege of interviewing Hval and discussing the creation of this new project, her attention to scent while performing in cities worldwide, and the little notes in between that get her gears turning.

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Ian Sleat: I’m dying to hear about the conception of this idea of an album based on a comfortable, familiar scent symbol. When and why did you decide that “Iris Silver Mist” was going to be the title and the all-encompassing theme of the record?

Jenny Hval: I think part of the reason I chose the title Iris Silver Mist was that this particular scent is so uncomfortable… It’s the opposite of comfort. It has been described as something you’d wear to a poet’s funeral! Or as the perfume the ghost in Hamlet would wear! It was the aura around the scent that made me connect with it, long before I tried it… and the suggestion that it would be worn by a ghost character made me feel like it belonged to me too. For many years now, I’ve felt like artists are ghosts. I’ve seen the value of art (at least music that doesn’t fit into the popular) diminish, there’s less music in the media, streaming services has been strangling music, the pandemic drove people away from concerts, the rise of obsessive and algorithmic social media platform has made “everyone” is an artist, but forced to perform inside the same little screen. Etc. If there is any overarching theme on the record, it is to be human inside these structures, at this time. Feeling like a pile of dry bones, chalk, and sand.

“Iris Silver Mist” for those who don’t know is a fragrance by Serge Lutens. Without describing its literal notes, could you describe what is so evocative about the scent for you?

First of all, it’s a cult classic, so many very good writers have written its fanfiction over the years. As someone deeply interested in the language around invisible art forms, I find great value in that. To me the scent smells like boiled carrots, but also cold earth. It’s both milky and dry at the same time too. I feel like the perfume, when you spray it on, penetrates your skin and fuses with your bones. Maybe it even rearranges you and puts bone on the outside and skin on the inside. It’s not an experience I want to have every day, I save it for rainy, misty days when the dead can dance.

Before the album was determined, you mentioned many of the tracks were a “continuous flow of ideas.” Were these songs always going to exist on a project together or did this aspect of scent serve as the glue for “Iris Silver Mist.”

The very first idea I had was to create a mixtape. A long sausage of sound that would be continuous, but one idea would turn into the next, and there would be songs – but it would feel as if it was “a continuous trip you couldn’t skip”. I tried to write all the songs inside the same project file, and I imagined there would be a seed of what would come next placed inside each idea. I wanted immediacy and continuity.

The scent did come into the process – I had become obsessed with perfume a few months before I started working on the album, and this obsession consumed me – I used it to reconnect with sound and get ideas.

I would go test a scent and then sit down to write, and I would name the piece I wrote whatever I wore that day. It became a scent diary. I don’t know if the scents I tested really influenced my writing, but the ritual of testing them and then writing while sniffing my wrist (“huffing my arm”) made me work steadily and with some kind of direction. As if each scent was an invisible guide.

Could you discuss the weeks following the release of this project? What’s the response been? How do you feel?

The response has been really wonderful, more than I’ve ever really experienced. Maybe because I published a book at the same time as the record here in Norway, so I gave the audience the possibility of two linked artworks – I’ve not been able to do that before.

Playing the music live is very rewarding for me, I’m very fond of this music, and I guess it feels like home. I work with very good friends and artists that I admire immensely, so it’s an honor to get to release and perform my work. I am overwhelmed to meet people and share it with them. It is such a privilege.

Now that you’re up and touring the album do you attribute more meaning or attention to local smells as you bounce from place to place?

I think a lot more about scents and places now than I used to. I notice how flowers bloom at different times and smell different depending on the weather. I notice more nuances in spices and cooking scents, like the different facets of sweatiness in cumin. I do think more about the correlation between scent and place. But I need to travel more (and without a cold like I had on my first tour for this album) to gather more thoughts.

Since I’m more of an indoor person, it’s fascinating for me to experience the smells of cleaning products when I travel. Cleaning products are many times made to mask the presence of people (and their dirt or fluids). They are conceptually very interesting to me – smells of absence. Unlike perfumes, which are smells of a person’s presence. Cleaning product scents are not universal. Here in Norway, many products are delicately pine or citrus-scented. However, I remember arriving in Spain recently, walking into a recently cleaned airport bathroom, and finding it to smell sweet and rosy. I never used to think about this so much but now I am creating a map in my head.

I also notice people and their scents differently. The perfumes they wear. The nuances of people’s sweat and body odor. People are fascinating. And different.

Beyond Iris Silver Mist, are there any other scents or notes that are particularly poignant or evocative for you? What have they meant to you/made you feel if there are any particular examples?

There is a lot of stuff that I have a deep connection to from my childhood. Wet concrete basements (I loved this as a child), old books (magic), grass, and hay in a barn. A sweet purple flower I used to pick and eat. Dog paws – they smell of popcorn. Steamed rice. Warm waffles (very Norwegian). Overboiled milk. The smell of wet, sleepy kids on the school bus on the way home from a forest trip in the rain. My fingers on my left hand after playing the steel-string guitar (metal skin). So many things. 

Have these deeper connections to your senses and the body always been central to your creative process? How, if at all, has scent and perfume driven your creativity before creating an album central to it?

I think my interest in scent and the mystery of smelling, remembering, and feeling has always been strong. It is all over my writing, as an invisible art and even a form of silent protest (in my book Girls Against God a mysterious, unpleasant scent is unleashed in Oslo). My added interest in perfume over the past few years has just made me more aware of composed smells. It has given the art of composition and writing a new facet, a more nuanced language. It has unpacked what scents can be made of, how they can relate to creativity, and how they can change over time.

Do you approach creating an album inspired by a perfume or scents with specific narratives in mind or did each song sort of flow out with no immediate story in mind?

I didn’t really think I was making music inspired by perfume in the beginning. Trying on perfumes before writing music was just a private motivation, I didn’t understand how it could be conceptually connected to the music. I was quite embarrassed about how deep my interest was at the time because I felt it was just a midlife crisis hobby or something. Over time I remembered how important scents are to me and how related music and perfume can be, or at least how they can shadow each other. As two invisible arts.

Could you share any moments of scent-related inspiration that were turning points in either a specific track on the album or the album as a whole?

I don’t think I felt like there were, sadly. It would have been interesting though. I discovered a lot of ingredients that I love during the making of the album. I thought a lot about presence and absence. Not just when I thought about cleaning products! Also when I thought about the album as a whole. There are songs on the album that I wanted to have a human voice very, very present – but there’s always the idea of a world without humans (or a world without me, or a loved one, a world that moves on). The birdsong in Lay down could signal a post-apocalyptic world with no humans, and the track “Huffing my arm” can signal a more ghost-like idea of a human, whispering across dimensions or using wordless phrases. A world without words.

Do you experience any kind of synesthesia between sound and scent while creating? If so, has that boundary become more porous in the making of Iris Silver Mist?

Yes, definitely. I had started using a lot of sampled string synths and mellotron sounds on my demos for this album (the demos are quite similar to the album, we just added things on top later). To me, these sounds, and what they made me write, felt fragile and airy, like a singing ghost. This again reminded me of a powdery, dusty, chalk-like substance. Then I started smelling dusty or powdery perfumes – with violet, or iris. That was part of the reason I couldn’t let go of the connection to Iris Silver Mist The Perfume. It smelled like those sounds.

I like how you describe the album as its perfume with top, heart, and base notes. Was mirroring fragrance structures something you consciously did or was it something that happened by chance?

It was something I mainly did when writing about the album after it was finished. Most of my thoughts about my work come after everything is done. 

I’m sure that touring and press for this album are probably booming now more than ever, but once it comes time to create a new project, do you think scents will continue to be this infusion of inspiration that they have been for Iris Silver Mist?

I hope so, but I’m not ready to write anything yet. I need to live. And smell more.

Ian Sleat is a freelance music, food, and culture writer. You can subscribe to his SubStack “To Be Frank” here.